Arthur Crudup: Complete Recorded Works Vol. 2

ARTHUR CRUDUP: COMPLETE RECORDED WORKS VOL. 2 (1946-1949)

1) Crudup's After Hours; 2) I Want My Lovin'; 3) That's All Right; 4) I Don't Know It; 5) Cry Your Blues Away; 6) Crudup's Vicksburg Blues; 7) Gonna Be Some Changes Made; 8) Train Fare Blues; 9) Katie Mae; 10) Hey Mama, Everything's All Right; 11) Hoodoo Lady Blues; 12) Lonesome World To Me; 13) Roberta Blues; 14) Just Like A Spider; 15) Some Day; 16) That's Why I'm Lonesome; 17) Tired Of Worry; 18) Dust My Broom; 19) Hand Me Down My Walking Cane; 20) Shout Sister Shout; 21) Come Back Baby; 22) You Know That I Love You.

If there is one change from «Big Boy»'s early 1940s to late 1940s style, it is a drastic shift of the proportional rate of the Slow One to the Fast One. Crudup's soul may have been more in the Slow One, but the real money was coming in on the Fast One; thus, out of the 22 songs on this album, 10 are the Fast One and 12 are the Slow One, whereas on the first volume the Fast One first ap­peared in the guise of 'Mean Old Frisco Blues' and only gained its positions very gradually.

This is the period during which 'That's All Right (Mama)' was recorded — but in the context of the album, it is not even the most energetic incarnation of the Fast One; personally, I would rather vote for 'I Want My Lovin', the exact same tune, but with some very nifty jazz drumming driving Arthur to play and sing it with a tad more wildness. Of course, these are truly microscopical dif­ferences we are speaking about, but what else is there to speak about when you deal with an artist who is not above re-recording the same 12-bar blues as 'Ethel Mae' the first time and then 'Katie Mae' the second time around?

Pretty much the only Fast One here that is not 'That's All Right' is 'Shout Sister Shout', a fun piece of Big Joe Turner-ish jump blues; and pretty much the only Slow Ones of particular notice are his interpretations of 'Dust My Broom' and 'Hand Me Down My Walking Cane', since it is most like­ly his simplistic style of trilling that served as the inspiration for Elmore James. (Do not quote me on that, though). The rest is the rest: 'Gonna Be Some Changes Made' is as deceiving a song title as I have ever come across.